


People Have Always Considered Being Alive One Of My Most Undesirable Traits

by lobac



Series: Vaguely Chronological Bouts Of Introspection [2]
Category: Venom (Comics)
Genre: Getting to Know Each Other, Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 03:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lobac/pseuds/lobac
Summary: Eddie meets some slime that slithers under his skin. Rudely decides to pull it out of its comfortable surroundings to get a good look at it.





	People Have Always Considered Being Alive One Of My Most Undesirable Traits

Eddie watches his stomach rise and fall, watches the seam where the symbiote stretches out of his body. It's anchored somewhere deeper than skin, he can feel it, and part of him is preoccupied with the unsettling thought that the wrong move could tear him open, that he's already been gutted and is only waiting for someone to twist and remove the knife, but the symbiote reassures. Sends impressions of effortlessly fitting between his very cells, leaving its surroundings undisturbed. Anticipating his every action so they can move together, in harmony.

Eddie's hands hover over the black stalk, shimmering under the low light of the setting sun. These are hardly the ideal conditions for him to examine the symbiote under, but then, it’s not like there’s anything his eyes could tell him that the symbiote couldn't tell him directly. He's more concerned with the act of looking than with gathering information, somehow. And being looked at, the symbiote thinks, under artificial lighting, with a purpose in mind, would be different. Easier. Simpler. Unbearable, even though this is, too.

Why do emotions only ever get more complex? Every time it thinks it has a handle on them, they transform into something new and inexplicable. Always more contradictions to resolve, more nuances to recognise. Why can't it reach a point where it just... understands?

Eddie is looking straight ahead, now, it realises, into its eyes, it realises the significance of that. But then, no... Not into its eyes, at its eyes. His mouth moves very, very slowly.

"Shhh."

He must have gotten some impression of its thoughts, it thinks, still unused to a connection that goes both ways, euphoric and terrified. Eddie's gaze lingers on every refracted colour, every facet of its eyes. The symbiote wants to avoid it, to hold it, but has the power to do neither, and settles for trying not to dissolve under it.

One of his hands travels along, just above the outline of its body. It can tell that he means to tilt its head downwards before he ever makes contact, so it moves before he ever gets the chance to. A thought is enough direction. Physical manipulation is unnecessary.

For a second, Eddie falters. He feels a flash of surprise, disappointment, and the symbiote is almost affronted at his reaction to an ability it had received nothing but praise for, the one thing that had always made it feel useful. But then he relents, draws back, and he tries...

_Turn your head to the right._

He's still putting his commands in words, not trusting it to work with intent alone, but it's a start. The symbiote complies.

_To the left?_

Eddie watches the light roll across its surface, the dark substance of it fluttering across its eyes. Finally, there's something like the pride it'd hoped for.

_Can you nod your head?_

It's the most elegant nod anyone with no strictly defined "head" has ever performed. Eddie's smiling. They're getting into it, now. Playful.

_Can you shake your head?_

The symbiote does.

"What d'you mean, no?" Eddie speaks, for the first time in a while, and startles the symbiote into a number of thought processes, ending in a definite sense of annoyance. Before it can worry about defying its host, Eddie reacts, and with... happiness? Laughter.

And as inexplicable as it is, the symbiote soaks it up. Every vibration of his vocal chords, every invigorating substance released in his brain. It caused that. It's never caused anything like that before.

Mine, it thinks. All of that.  _Mine._  It fans out to envelop its host, to claim, to feel as one instead of feeling at each other, to leave this in-between state, but it stops, just a centimeter from his raised hands.

Eddie’s grinning, still. Differently, though. He pushes back, directs the symbiote to take the form it had before, moving as if molding it. It settles into a long, round shape, bottom to top, and when its host’s hands arrive just below its eyes, they close in, until, fingers stiff and outstretched, they come into contact with the symbiote’s surface.

They stare at each other, unmoving.

The symbiote begins the high-level telepathic equivalent of rattling off facts about its texture, how it can alter its density to an incredible degree, how it has direct control over its body as one single entity, but Eddie doesn’t seem satisfied with that. Instead, he digs his fingertips into the malleable mass, one by one, then releases again. He’s expecting a reaction. The symbiote has none it could process enough to share it.

Is this, it thinks, the touching, is it like the looking?

It’s a complex set of meanings. Eddie narrows his eyes, then, finally, huffs another laugh, and suddenly, though it’s certain humans cannot alter their consistency at all, his hands feel softer. They relax, drawing closer, palms melding to its surface.

_Yes._

It is, somehow, ten thousand times worse and better. The symbiote doesn’t register the press of his skin as anything more than that, but Eddie registers it as  _soft_ , and  _warm_ , and  _alive_ , and  _gooey, but not slimy_ , all those things heavy with positive association. The symbiote, itself, heavy with positive association. It feels like it’s going to crumble to dust under the weight of it.

Eddie trails one thumb along the edge of its eye, one set of knuckles up and down its underside, so convinced that it has to feel pleasant, like it would for a mammal, that it almost does. His hands meet where he thinks the symbiote’s mouth should be, and he realises that, right there, the usual give to it... ends.

He looks into its eyes, then, serious. Feels the ridges underneath. “Show me your teeth,” he whispers into the darkness between them, and the symbiote’s flesh is parting for him before it’s aware of it. They’re hard and needle-sharp, possessing none of the qualities that drew him to the rest of its body, but it suppresses the stab of fear that comes with the thought of rejection, closes its eyes, and lets him get his curiosity out of his system.

It does feel different. The whole situation feels different. Eddie, for the first time, is actually testing, looking for something. His thumb rests on the tip of a fang, and then there are two conflicting impulses, to protect its host or to impress its host, and the symbiote lets him push down, lets him see that it doesn’t take much to break the skin, not much at all.

Eddie draws back, slowly, watching a droplet of blood hang from the symbiote’s mouth, hand trembling so slightly as to be imperceptible to anyone else. Black rises from his skin, soothing the wound immediately.

Eddie pictures, very vividly, a droplet of blood hanging from his lips. The symbiote licks its own up, thinking it a sign to be self-conscious. He remains fixated on his mouth for a few moments more, on split lips and silky darkness to cover them, but the symbiote doesn’t know what to make of that, and, soon, he discards the train of thought as if it never happened.

Instead, he turns back to the symbiote, touching its face once more, bubbling with familiar intensity. “You’re...” His eyes roam over its body, thoughts turning to its softness, turning to crushing force, turning to its numbness, turning to impenetrable protection. Its independent thought, its eagerness to follow orders. “...Powerful,” he says. “Imagine what we can do together.”

And then, finally, Eddie taps into that deep, dark rage they share. Finally, the symbiote no longer feels off-balance, like they’re divided in their purpose, like there isn’t one to bind them. Eddie thinks of ways to use it, to use it on the one who deserves it, claws to slash, teeth to tear, strength to shatter, and he doesn’t lack in enthusiasm, has been stewing in thoughts of violence since he, himself, was broken, not in body, but in spirit... But still, he lacks in experience.

The symbiote, not so. The symbiote has seen and heard and felt all of the snap, crackle and pop human bodies have to offer. Ironically enough, with the very man they now seek to destroy.

So it fills in the gaps in its host’s fantasies. Eddie offers the  _how much I’d like to,_ and the symbiote delivers: Here’s how, here’s how you would feel, here’s how he would scream. Eddie picks it up from there, here’s how we would  _triumph_ , here’s what we could  _do_ , and so they fan each other’s flames until they’re overtaken by an inferno.

Somewhere along the way, Eddie, immersed, invested, pushes his forehead up against the symbiote’s form, eyes moving rapidly behind closed eyelids, hands joined as if in prayer, and it reminds it of those earlier moments, precious and terrible all at once, everything it longed for and everything it cannot handle and everything it wasn’t made for. 

Existing with someone, as an individual. Not a tool of objective worth, not a thing that shouldn’t be, not an extension of the host. Instead, standing, forevermore, on the precipice. Worse, somewhere completely outside of those roles. Remaining unacknowledged would be easier, simpler. As unbearable as anything else.


End file.
